Motherhood

by Paul Martin Freeman (August 2025)

for Georgiana Mustata
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Oh darling baby sleeping there
So delicate I hardly dare
To stroke you hair or touch your ear
In case you die or disappear.
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How precious is your life to me:
A wonder only I can see!
And I am yours and you are mine
And all of this is God’s design.
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This peace, this blessed union,
This world of quiet communion
Is something only mothers know
Who watch their tiny babies grow.
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It seems as though it’s our reward
For what too often seems ignored
And recompense from Mother Earth
For woman’s pain in giving birth.
–
For what is there that can compare
With what so cruelly women bear
When patiently we play our part
And feel our bodies ripped apart?
–
But then that punishment of Eve’s
With rapture Mother Earth relieves
From love for suffering womankind
For so by God it’s been designed.
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And yet I fear it cannot last
With every day you growing fast
As each will steal some more of you
And take away what once I knew.
–
No longer in my arms you’ll lie—
How quickly thieving Time will fly!
Another world you’ll then explore
And all too soon will leave my door.
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For once again the wheel will turn
When all this joy will sorrow earn
As what I have I then shall lose
For none can Nature’s laws refuse.
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Thus Time will tear this world apart
And with it, too, this mother’s heart.
No longer then will you be mine,
But this as well is God’s design.
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